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239 reviews for:
Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause
Ty Seidule
4.4 AVERAGE
239 reviews for:
Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause
Ty Seidule
4.4 AVERAGE
This book was a great disappointment. The first thing I should note is that there are many sources in the end notes, many of which I consider credible from my own reading and knowledge. Regrettably, Seidule elides fact and context, and the result is a very rough treatment of a subject that requires nuance. He makes a compelling case regarding the absolute horror of slavery and Jim Crow but falls short of the mark breaking down the causes of the Civil War. Slavery was certainly a cause but it was far from the only cause, and it is in the department of causation where he makes his most tenuous and "righteous" logical jumps. His passion often supplants the mostly impartial empiricism he claims to demonstrate in his research. The prime example of this is when he repeatedly claims he cannot find a "smoking gun" to link the construction of a monument to resistance to integration, but due to the time frame involved he can think of no other possible explanation. A responsible historian would show some humility and refrain from glib declarations in the utter absence of confirmation. Speculation is acceptable, but it must be advertised as such. The subsequent evil abuse of a symbol also does not make debate on the original historical context invalid.
The academic study of the causes of the Civil War is not merely the simple exposition of an obvious Manichean choice between good and evil. No matter how often one manipulates data or removes inconvenient contextual history, no matter how ardently one wishes it to be an easily digestible conflict, the simple truth is that it was not. It is irresponsible for a historian to present it as such and to shame a plurality of the people of this country into believing their ancestors fought purely for evil, and to insinuate they are probably evil or ignorant for admiring them.
Seidule notes Lee understood that few countries survive civil wars without serious grief. The US has not had an easy time since the 1860s and some portions of the population have continued to suffer as a result of the war. I would argue that we still do not understand some of the causes and effects of the war properly. State nullification of federal law, which by all rights should have also been abolished by the precedent set by a Union victory, survives to this day. Where are the historians who understand the serious civic implications of this? They seem in the main to have concluded their writing prior to 1970. Scholarship of the Civil War must, must be as honest and comprehensive as possible if it is not to increase the societal and educational evils Seidule fears. By this standard I cannot give this book more than one star.
To be continued in a future update.
The academic study of the causes of the Civil War is not merely the simple exposition of an obvious Manichean choice between good and evil. No matter how often one manipulates data or removes inconvenient contextual history, no matter how ardently one wishes it to be an easily digestible conflict, the simple truth is that it was not. It is irresponsible for a historian to present it as such and to shame a plurality of the people of this country into believing their ancestors fought purely for evil, and to insinuate they are probably evil or ignorant for admiring them.
Seidule notes Lee understood that few countries survive civil wars without serious grief. The US has not had an easy time since the 1860s and some portions of the population have continued to suffer as a result of the war. I would argue that we still do not understand some of the causes and effects of the war properly. State nullification of federal law, which by all rights should have also been abolished by the precedent set by a Union victory, survives to this day. Where are the historians who understand the serious civic implications of this? They seem in the main to have concluded their writing prior to 1970. Scholarship of the Civil War must, must be as honest and comprehensive as possible if it is not to increase the societal and educational evils Seidule fears. By this standard I cannot give this book more than one star.
To be continued in a future update.
Read this book if you want to know how and why we have US Army bases named after traitors.
Before there was the term disinformation there was and is the Lost Cause Myth, perhaps the most effective and successful lie in American History. Just as the Nazis studied the South’s Jim Crow laws on how to marginalize Jews I’m sure the Russians studied the Lost Cause for their disinformation dissertation. We won the war but lost the peace. So much for the line about winners writing history. Given the book’s currency I’m surprised the author didn’t specifically cite and link the term disinformation to the Lost Cause.
African Americans were the casualties of white reconciliation after the Spanish American War. Ty Seidule, the author, shows too how every time civil rights would gain some energy Confederate monuments would also appear- especially at West Point of all places.
I too like the author grew up in the Washington DC area and pursued a military career but I was raised in the border state of Maryland and went into the Marines. I had a subscription to Civil War Times Magazine in second grade and had already made a pilgrimage to Antietam. I respected the generals of the Confederacy for their elan. I would take a rebel gray cap over Yankee blue any day. But I never identified as a Southerner. I would cringe when Maryland was called a Southern state. I saw myself as Middle Atlantic. I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass in high school and knew the war was about slavery. How could it not be? But I still respected the martial prowess of the CSA.
It would not be until I was a Marine that my views on their fighting strategy and tactics evolved. I found my boyhood idols wanting. Audacity to me was recklessness. Their planning was poor. Stupidity was called bravery.
Ty Seidule expiates his soul in this short, well organized book about himself and Robert E. Lee’s apotheosis. Lee is no hero and neither is he a gentleman. He is a traitor and the consummate racist.
Before there was the term disinformation there was and is the Lost Cause Myth, perhaps the most effective and successful lie in American History. Just as the Nazis studied the South’s Jim Crow laws on how to marginalize Jews I’m sure the Russians studied the Lost Cause for their disinformation dissertation. We won the war but lost the peace. So much for the line about winners writing history. Given the book’s currency I’m surprised the author didn’t specifically cite and link the term disinformation to the Lost Cause.
African Americans were the casualties of white reconciliation after the Spanish American War. Ty Seidule, the author, shows too how every time civil rights would gain some energy Confederate monuments would also appear- especially at West Point of all places.
I too like the author grew up in the Washington DC area and pursued a military career but I was raised in the border state of Maryland and went into the Marines. I had a subscription to Civil War Times Magazine in second grade and had already made a pilgrimage to Antietam. I respected the generals of the Confederacy for their elan. I would take a rebel gray cap over Yankee blue any day. But I never identified as a Southerner. I would cringe when Maryland was called a Southern state. I saw myself as Middle Atlantic. I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass in high school and knew the war was about slavery. How could it not be? But I still respected the martial prowess of the CSA.
It would not be until I was a Marine that my views on their fighting strategy and tactics evolved. I found my boyhood idols wanting. Audacity to me was recklessness. Their planning was poor. Stupidity was called bravery.
Ty Seidule expiates his soul in this short, well organized book about himself and Robert E. Lee’s apotheosis. Lee is no hero and neither is he a gentleman. He is a traitor and the consummate racist.
This is a fantastic history written by an army officer who grew up in the south. He believed in states rights and the “lost cause” myth relating to our Civil War. This book records his journey from that mistaken viewpoint to a more accurate view that Robert E Lee was a traitor who fought to preserve slavery.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
fast-paced
A very personable and human telling of the history and cultural impact of civil war monuments and the Lee's posthumous cult of personality. There were perhaps some places that could have been dug into deeper, specifically the different cultural forces that continue to entrench racism within the broader culture of the military, and the potential problematic nature of so much of US identity being wrapped up in military identities through monuments and within the general historical narrative in society, but what Seidule does, he does very well and he makes his arguments and evidence understandable to a general audience which is a democratic act that not many historians engage in.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
This book is hard to categorize because while it is part Civil War history lecture, it is part memoir as well. Although Gen. Seidule had tremendous things to say in the first two-thirds of the book, chapters 6 and 7 were the most informative. It was interesting to learn how much blame politicians placed on West Point for the Civil War and learn the history behind the oath thousands of cadets take each year. It was fascinating to learn that most members of the extended Lee family were Unionists.
Important, timely, thorough, eye-opening. His personal story intertwined with historical research by an experienced history professor is compelling.
This book is part memoir but mostly a history of Civil War era, reconstruction, and historical site- specifically through the lens of the glorification of Robert E. Lee.
The author has a PhD in History, was active in the Army and a professor at West Point for nearly 2 decades. So he is clearly educated and knowledgeable. Even though he is very educated, he is very humble as he shares his own incorrect beliefs about the Lost Cause as well as racist beliefs he grew up with and held personally through adulthood.
It’s through that lens that he writes this book, from a history as a Southerner who grew up memorializing Robert E. Lee.
He faces head on the lies of the Lost Cause with loads of primary sources.
The Lost Cause myth claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was heroic and based on “states rights” and not centered on their desire to enslave, torture and rape other human beings.
He uses primary sources (writtings and speeches directly from generals, slave owners, politicians, and the enslaved) to clearly show the reader the purpose of the South’s rebellion was to procure rights to keep enslaving others.
As my first book debunking lies about The Lost Cause, I found it a bit deep in the weeds for me, instead of an overview. But I am glad I picked it up and started somewhere.
The author has a PhD in History, was active in the Army and a professor at West Point for nearly 2 decades. So he is clearly educated and knowledgeable. Even though he is very educated, he is very humble as he shares his own incorrect beliefs about the Lost Cause as well as racist beliefs he grew up with and held personally through adulthood.
It’s through that lens that he writes this book, from a history as a Southerner who grew up memorializing Robert E. Lee.
He faces head on the lies of the Lost Cause with loads of primary sources.
The Lost Cause myth claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was heroic and based on “states rights” and not centered on their desire to enslave, torture and rape other human beings.
He uses primary sources (writtings and speeches directly from generals, slave owners, politicians, and the enslaved) to clearly show the reader the purpose of the South’s rebellion was to procure rights to keep enslaving others.
As my first book debunking lies about The Lost Cause, I found it a bit deep in the weeds for me, instead of an overview. But I am glad I picked it up and started somewhere.
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
The full title of this book is: ROBERT E. LEE AND ME: A SOUTHERNER'S RECKONING WITH THE MYTH OF THE LOST CAUSE. It's the frank story of the author's journey from his traditional Southern upbringing to his West Point career and historian's exploration of the Confederate States of America (the official name of the eleven states that seceded from the union, sparking the American Civil War 1861-65).
To save you looking it up, the LOST CAUSE, according to Wikipedia, is defined as, "a pseudo historical negationist myth that claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery."
Using examples from his own childhood, education, work history and scholarship, Seidule's first-person narrative documents all the ways in which the Lost Cause is still glorified throughout Southern life, without any reference to its determination to continue the institution of slavery in perpetuity.
The new Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander H. Stephens, described the basic ideology of his newly formed "nation" on March 21, 1861 as built "upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition." So much for the argument that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery.
The book's title refers to what Seidule perceives as the South's almost religious fixation in honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who ended a successful 30-year military career in the U.S. Army when he resigned his commission in 1861 to fight for the Confederacy. Seidule argues compellingly that the zealous affection with which Lee is held and the countless monuments placed to remember him are completely misplaced. Because instead of being respected as a successful general or Southern patriot, Seidule argues Lee should chiefly be remembered for both breaking his sworn West Point oath of allegiance to the United States Government AND committing treason by making war against the U.S. Constitution he had promised to uphold. Lee actually WAS charged with treason after the Civil War ended.
SIDENOTE: Interestingly, the U.S. Constitution specifically defines and limits the offense of treason to only two types of conduct:
1. levying war against the United States
2. adhering to the enemies of the United States, giving them aid and comfort.
Another fact I learned from this book connects to more recent current affairs. The event that actually triggered the act of secession was how unhappy Southern Whites were with the results of the 1860 election -- when Abraham Lincoln was legally elected on a campaign platform opposing the expansion of slavery in the country's western territories. Hmmm, taking illegal actions because of unhappiness with the results of a legal and democratic election? Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
It's a very interesting book, easy to read, and will make you think about and perhaps question some of the facts we were all raised on. It helped me better understand the pervasive presence of racism throughout our country's history and why so much of it persists more than 150 years after the Civil War ended. And it certainly sheds light on many of the divisions that still exist in this country. Highly recommended.
To save you looking it up, the LOST CAUSE, according to Wikipedia, is defined as, "a pseudo historical negationist myth that claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery."
Using examples from his own childhood, education, work history and scholarship, Seidule's first-person narrative documents all the ways in which the Lost Cause is still glorified throughout Southern life, without any reference to its determination to continue the institution of slavery in perpetuity.
The new Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander H. Stephens, described the basic ideology of his newly formed "nation" on March 21, 1861 as built "upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition." So much for the argument that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery.
The book's title refers to what Seidule perceives as the South's almost religious fixation in honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who ended a successful 30-year military career in the U.S. Army when he resigned his commission in 1861 to fight for the Confederacy. Seidule argues compellingly that the zealous affection with which Lee is held and the countless monuments placed to remember him are completely misplaced. Because instead of being respected as a successful general or Southern patriot, Seidule argues Lee should chiefly be remembered for both breaking his sworn West Point oath of allegiance to the United States Government AND committing treason by making war against the U.S. Constitution he had promised to uphold. Lee actually WAS charged with treason after the Civil War ended.
SIDENOTE: Interestingly, the U.S. Constitution specifically defines and limits the offense of treason to only two types of conduct:
1. levying war against the United States
2. adhering to the enemies of the United States, giving them aid and comfort.
Another fact I learned from this book connects to more recent current affairs. The event that actually triggered the act of secession was how unhappy Southern Whites were with the results of the 1860 election -- when Abraham Lincoln was legally elected on a campaign platform opposing the expansion of slavery in the country's western territories. Hmmm, taking illegal actions because of unhappiness with the results of a legal and democratic election? Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
It's a very interesting book, easy to read, and will make you think about and perhaps question some of the facts we were all raised on. It helped me better understand the pervasive presence of racism throughout our country's history and why so much of it persists more than 150 years after the Civil War ended. And it certainly sheds light on many of the divisions that still exist in this country. Highly recommended.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Murder
Moderate: Rape
Great book that uses the context of the author's life to dispel the 'Lost Cause' myth of the Civil War. I especially appreciated the point by point take down of Lee in the last chapter. Facts don't care about your feelings and the Civil War was started by treasonous southerners intent to kill their fellow Americans in order to continue the institution of chattel slavery. The rebellion failed not just because of the superior resources of the North but through better leadership, better battleplans, and a better reason to fight. The fact that for the decades since the war somehow the South has been able, BEEN ALLOWED, to create and instil in the minds of millions the romantic idea of the 'Lost Cause' is disgusting and no matter what discomfort it brings to white people these monuments and the ideas they stand for must be systematically eradicated.
Since I hate the military not everything he said resonated with me, but it was refreshing to hear someone be so uncompromising about the confederacy, especially someone so "respectable."